A Child Named Soujiiro
by Shadow of Midnight
Summary: Kenshin POV. Kenshin, Kaoru and Soujiiro have a conversation in the aftermath of Shishio's fall. Rated for referenced child abuse


**. Related to my other piece, My Name is Soujiiro. This one is Kenshin's POV. In this, Kenshin and Kaoru took in Soujiiro after Shishio's fall. **

**I don't own… Tragic**

"I'm weak." The frail teenager murmurs in self-loathing. "Pathetic, that's me. I'm no good to anyone." Kaoru and I exchange glances.

"You aren't weak." Kaoru suggests. He shakes his head, looking dead inside. I can't see his eyes but I know they are filled with pain. His blue eyes can be empty, I know, but there is something inside them which cries out for a little love.

"I am." He whispers. "I'm useless." He tightens his fist, the greatest display of emotion I've ever seen from this broken child.

"You aren't." She replies firmly. He just stares at the ground, not looking up or meeting our eyes.

"No one's ever wanted me except for Shishio-sama and now he's dead because I'm useless." A short sob wracked his body.

We gaze at each other again. How can he be so wrong? In a lot of ways, Soujiiro is the strongest person I've ever encountered.

"You made it this far." Kaoru says, trying to convince him but also trying to convince herself. He laughs bitterly.

"And what did that do?" He asks sarcastically. Blood drips from one of his battle injuries, "Nothing."

She frowns. "Soujiiro…" She says quietly. "We know what happened. Not everyone would have been able to live through that."

His voice is bitter when he speaks. "Kenshin-san, you said that it is the duty of the weak to protect the strong." He pauses.

"Yes?" I answer gently.

His tone gets more angry. "Then why did no one ever help me?" He demands. "Everyone abandoned me." All I can do is suppress a tear. He has a point, and a valid one. No one helped him when he needed it. Why should he believe that people will help each other when no one freed him from his shackles?

"I don't know." I say gently. "I wish I could have."

His face is once more that broken smile. "It wouldn't have been worth it." He says, in all seriousness, "Why should people care about someone as weak as I am? I don't serve a purpose anymore." Kaoru gestures to me to start explaining. She, like myself, can feel Soujiiro slipping away.

"You are stronger then you say." I tell him with confidence.

"I'm no good." He repeated dully.

I don't understand him. Does he know that a weak person would have never made it for as long as Soujiiro did? I don't know if I could make it for that long and still come out even relatively sane.

"No normal person is capable of surviving what you survived." My words are precise, measured, but with warmth in them, "Anyone else would have killed themselves, or gone insane a long time ago, but you made it through."

Kaoru backs me up. "When Megumi-Vixen was treating your injuries, she said that in addition to Kenjutsu scarring, there were a lot of scars from when you were an child. She said that she hadn't seen scars that bad before." Soujiiro shakes his head vigorously, almost violently from side to side.

"No." He says simply. "Someone else could have done better." I shake my head in resolve. I will have to convince him that he is not useless if I want him to have a snowball's chance in hell at surviving.

"Soujiiro." He looks up at me, broken eyes wide and tear-stained, "I don't know anyone who was abused by their family and treated like a slave for that long, and managed to come out alive. I've known veteran soldiers, full grown men and women take a one hour torture session and be released as someone too scarred to be normal. And you not only came out alive, you came out with a heart." My words are pleading, I have to make him realize that he _is_ strong if I want him to learn to live.

His face remains blank. "I'm a broken sword."

"You're too young to be a weapon." Kaoru says, ignoring the fact that he is most likely older than her, even though he looks younger.

Startlingly, his sorrow seems to grow. "She said that to me." He whispers faintly.

"Who?" Kaoru is curious.

"Yumi-donno." There is more sadness in his tone. "The first person to ask my name as if I actually was a person." He inhales softly, his hair hangs before his eyes, which are tightly pressed shut.

"I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say. What do you say at a time like this? Yumi died for Shishio to try to defeat me.

"She was happy." He says emptily. "She knew she was glad." He turns away, gazing out the window.

"He's a child." Kaoru whispers. "Just a child."

"I know." A child, a child named Soujiiro. Lost in a world that was never fair to him. Grown up too fast, not knowing what it was like to have friendship.

**Like? **


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